It’s still August where I am so the future’s a little further off for me to predict.

Paradoxically, the hot desert regions will be most suited to large-scale solar power and that can provide desalination. But the key point is that in the future more and more people in such regions, Israel included, will be dependent on a high-technology infrastructure. Not something to be bombed every couple of years without huge implications. It’s the political chaos that’s the real problem as it precludes solutions to any other problem.

ivri: ...and finding ways to coexist with it, no matter how non-ideal...

I think your right ivri, the final outcome will be a single, democratic state - though it’s so non-ideal for you that you can’t bring yourself to say it. But in the end you get what you deserve and you, ivri, really do deserve it.

Oh dear, our Prophet’s voice is sounding more than a little supremacist, if not triumphant. But sadly he’s already admitted to backing power over morality.

Well, I’ll take Pappe over Professor Ellis on this. Certainly for Israel, I think Jewish destiny is now intractably coupled to Palestinian destiny. Indeed, with Hamas now making demands on a morally weakened Israel it may not be too long before they up the ante to equal rights in one state rather than just a lifting of the siege.

It’s time to take heed of the words of the L-rd, it is time to do what the people of Israel demand, it is time to kill Agag.

Now those are the words of a prophet who really does believe in power over morality. Take note, Professor Ellis.

Sadly for Prophet Blank - could there be a better name for such a moral nullity? - his very words show why the Palestinian moral courage to resist will triumph over Israeli military power. They win simply by not losing, leaving poor Prophet Blank angrily shaking his fist at their very existence.

Ironically, it’s Prophet Blank and his ilk who turn Hamas’s homemade rockets from virtually useless fireworks into psychological strategic weapons - the “we’re still here” taunt being devastatingly on target no matter where they physically land. No wonder they continue to fire them.

Far be for me to accuse Professor Ellis of not being a man of the world - after all I go to far fewer global conferences - but this strikes me as an assertion from someone who’s trying to be a tough realist but is actually very naive.

A state - no matter how powerful - without any moral foundation will ultimately collapse as a political entity because it will lack internal legitimacy. Unless our Jewish Prophet foresees that a Jewish state based solely on power would be legitimate in the eyes of its Jewish population.

However in the case of Israel, even if its population is actually happy with the effort of perpetually dominating its neighbors through power, it will never be able to sustain sufficient power to indefinitely counter the inevitable external reaction. Already it depends on subverting other states to give it the necessary power thus weakening the moral authority of such states. For instance, it should be obvious to any realist that Zionist control of the US will be finite in time - any such overreach always is. Only someone drunk on such power would not see this.

It’s sad to see such moral myopia in a self-proclaimed prophet. But surely this is one instance where Professor Ellis can only blame himself.

Keith: Have you ever wondered why with all of their military power they haven’t occupied at least one significant oil state, thereby freeing themselves from being dependent upon US support?

Keith, what enormous faith you posit in that ‘thereby’. You cruelly yolk this poor adverb into the back-breaking task of justifying an absurd concluding clause with an equally preposterous opening clause.

That said, I’ve often wondered why some people still think it's all about oil, thereby making themselves look very naive.

Professor Ellis: What the world wants is a policy that contains Palestinians and leaves the Middle East order, at least what’s left of it, in place.

Who’s to blame for the oppression of the Palestinians? “It’s the entire world.” announces Professor Ellis after an exhaustive investigation spanning Germany, the Vatican, and the rest of Europe; encompassing the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Catholics, and every other branch of Christianity; critically focussing on Martin Luther, the Pope and finally God himself. “Everywhere I looked there was someone to blame until it finally dawned on me it was everyone else’s fault”.

Next week on Mondoweiss: “Did I overlook the Amish?” asks Professor Ellis. “Look at Pennsylvania. It used to be the Quaker State till these German-speaking zealots arrived in their buggies and drove them all out.”

Mahane, I’ve followed Professor Ellis’s globe-trotting adventures closely, from Austria to South Korea to Germany. But sadly he has yet to alight on Israeli soil. We can only hope he corrects this unfortunate oversight soon and that his schedule is not so hectic that he can’t stop by your stall. What a great story - parable even - that would make - The Prophet and the Potato Seller.

Clearly Professor Ellis is very angry indeed with Israel. As well he should be as it buries his very own stock in trade - the notion of Jewish moral exceptionalism - on a beach in Gaza. Though not so angry that he can’t take a side swipe at the Christian churches. But then perhaps they’re really to blame for this ugly turn of events.

Great post Phil, an excellent follow-up to Jeff Halper. Arguing for the end of Jewish privilege in Israel / Palestine is a smart approach, it’s right in of itself without needing a Palestinian demand for a single, democratic state. Though it helps make space for that option.

But I think the argument that Jewish privilege isn’t necessary isn’t enough. With Israel effectively occupying and controlling the Palestinians, it must be made clear that it is simply unacceptable.

yonah fredman: At this point I agree that I don’t see a good endgame. Initiative has passed to the Palestinians and I see their logical step to be in the direction of “annex us and give us citizenship”, logical but not here yet for various reasons.

An interesting comment, yonah. I would say at this point I don’t see a clear endgame though I do see a Palestinian demand for equal rights in a single state as the best endgame - or beginning of the best endgame. And I would also say that once the Palestinians make such a demand they will then have not only seized the initiative but also the moral power to ultimately effect this outcome.

Though you are coming from a very different direction from me, I appreciate that you are really thinking about the issues and possible futures in I/P. I’m not sure you have embraced yet a single, democratic state as a good outcome but at least you are thinking about it. And in doing so I think you have shown there is potential to develop common ground in this direction for a better future for all in the region.

Jeff Harper: ... Israel has in fact left us with only one workable, just and lasting way out: a single democratic state in Palestine/Israel that guarantees the individual and collective rights of all its citizens.

I think Jeff Harper has been one of the most insightful commentators on Mondoweiss. He was making the point that the “two-state solution” was dead over two years ago and advised that we waste no more time discussing it:

A necessary and urgent first step towards collapsing the otherwise permanent regime of oppression in Israel/Palestine is that we stop talking about a two-state solution. It’s dead and gone as a political option – if, indeed, it ever really existed.

Sadly, since then Mondoweiss has not consistently followed Jeff’s prescient advice and has wasted far too much time and energy discussing the “two-state solution” both in its main posts and in its comments section.

After this latest Israeli assault on Gaza and its people, I can only hope that Mondoweiss takes up Jeff’s rallying call and puts all its resources behind spearheading the intellectual and moral argument for the single, democratic state. Even among non-Zionists there is so much capital - these days mainly emotional - invested in “two states” that the argument for the single, democratic state needs to be constantly and consistently pushed and pushed hard. The alternative, as Jeff says, is “warehousing” - though I think that could prove to be just a staging post to “transfer”.

Well Mahane, this is certainly bad English. But not the bad English you would expect from a someone with a shaky grasp of the language. No, this is the bad English of someone well acquainted with English, or rather American, slang and its nuances.

Professor Ellis: Thus we are left with the memory of a God who wasn’t silent – as God – in Gaza and beyond – is today.

With Israel upping the level of its outrages against the Palestinians, poor Professor Ellis must be really struggling to find someone else to blame to finally settle on God - or his absence.

But is God really absent in Gaza? It seems to me that once again the Old Testament God of Israel is very much present, smiting its enemies from the sky with a vengeful - if not genocidal - lust. I would have thought our Prophet would have something to say on this.

Very good rebuttal. Another fine example of the tremendous contribution you have made of late to the debate on the substantive issues to hand - as opposed to the theological issues Professor Ellis diverts us with from time to time.

Indeed not but make sure its genuine Ziocaine. Be on guard especially if your smiling hasbarista sports a spotless white T-shirt and has an Israeli accent. It’s not unknown for some to substitute a cheap generic knockoff and pocket the difference. The effect can often be quite violent; you might suddenly find yourself rushing over to another table and grabbing the olive off some poor innocent’s martini.

Dickinson: And, of course, Dr. Strangelove was modeled after the Rand Corporation’s military strategist and former physicist Herman Kahn link to en.wikipedia.org (also a founder of the neoconservative Hudson Institute).

Not to overlook Herman Kahn’s colleague and fellow strategist at RAND, Albert Wohlstetter who, along with Leo Strauss, can be considered as one of the founding fathers of neoconservatism.

“During his long career, Wohlstetter also taught at UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1960s. From 1964 to 1980, he taught in the political science department of the University of Chicago, and chaired the dissertation committees of Paul Wolfowitz and Zalmay Khalilzad. He is often credited with influencing a number of prominent members of the neoconservative movement,[11] including Richard Perle (who, as a teenager, dated Wohlstetter's daughter Joan).”

Indeed, what a fateful day for Iraq it would turn out to be when the young Richard Perle met Wohlstetter’s daughter at Hollywood High School all those years ago.

We should not overlook that Mahane is indeed a victim, a victim of Israel’s ruthless Soviet-bloc style education system.

Apparently the best and brightest Israeli youngsters are fast-tracked into Unit 8200 to learn cyber-warfare then move on to make a fortune in some high-tech start up. Poor Mahane was fast-tracked to a potato stall.

Keith, it’s your need to weave everything the US does into one cohesive global strategy that bogs you down. For example, the US meddling in the Ukraine has neocon fingerprints all over it, but that doesn’t have to mean it was ‘made in Israel’.

What the US does elsewhere in the world may be of less interest to Zionists, but US policy in the Middle East would seem to follow a neocon game plan and generally serves Israel’s interest by destabilizing the whole region into warring factions.

I should add that saying the above does not mean I disagree with everything you say about the rise of global neo-liberalism.

Keith: Another thing which I don’t recall seeing is the pro-Israel crew ever seriously criticize the American empire... ...I assume that they are afraid of biting the hand that feeds them,

Keith, this is the most astoundingly naive comment I can recall you making. But if you insist on putting the Empire cart before the Zionist horse it must all be so confusing.

Maybe one day you’ll finally realize the American Empire (of Chaos) in the Middle East serves Israel’s purpose. Then you’ll understand why you don’t hear it being criticized.

That said, if you’d been paying better attention you’d have noticed that there is indeed a hand-biting strand of hasbara which has the chutzpah to blame the US for all of Israel’s crimes. After all, what else can a client state do but obey it’s Imperial master?

“I just don’t get it.” muses Phil. “For the New York Times to run itself today as if diversity doesn’t exist. It’s as bad as the WASPs back in the Stone Age! I must call Adam, Scott, Professor Ellis, Lizzy and Professor Slater to ask whether they’ve ever come across anything quite like this before.”

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Poor Professor Ellis. Surely everyone could foresee a visit to Germany would not go well for him? Everyone that is except our good Prophet himself.

What a cruel a contrast it must have been. To see how Germany had rebuilt itself into one of the most admired nations in the world on the very week Israel was shooting teenagers dead in the street.

Valiantly he stood before the Germans and blamed them for Israel. And what was their response? To mock him with a high-speed parade of passing Volkwagens, Mercedes, and BMWs on the Autobahn. A modern-day Nuremberg rally on wheels; heartless Germanic precision rendered in cold steel.

No, it wasn’t just Germany to blame. It was the whole anti-Semitic continent. Catholic, Protestant, Christian of whatever stripe. It didn’t matter. They were all to blame.

Is Phil beginning to see through Bloomberg that it’s actually the same values underpinning the shameless celebration of achievement with an all-Jewish cast list and the shameful silence on the Palestinian youths killed by Israelis?

Certainly Bloomberg is smart enough to understand the crucial role of Israel to the “Jewish success story” and isn’t going to rock the boat on the former and risk damaging his place in the latter.

As for Leno, clearly he understands how the game works in Hollywood and still wants to be a player. He can hardly be used as a stand-in for all “Americans” any more than Bloomberg can be.

Mahane, when last week you begged Phil to shut down Mondoweiss because it failed to criticise Palestinian terror and incitement, I can only think that this very incident on the previous was what you were referring to.

Having now watched the awful video myself, I have to say I don’t blame you for trying.

Perhaps he was a medieval discoverer of the legendary Hasbarist’s Stone whereby he remains immortal so long as he never utters the truth. Every generation he changes his name and moves to another county to cover his tracks.

Are you suggesting that honest but misguided Mahane 1 leaves his laptop logged on to MW whilst serving customers allowing impostors 2 and 3 to sneak from the back of his stall and post behind his back?

That's a mean trick to play on an innocent and well-meaning Israeli but nevertheless one has to give credit to Hasbara Central for running such a sophisticated field operation in a desperate attempt to gain a little credibility.

Disrupting “western relations with Russia” is quite risky for Israel. Russia has money, weapons and contacts, and if Putin adopts fully anti-Western posture, it can be highly unpleasant.

Maybe Israel thinks it can play both sides of the street with respect to Russia and America in a similar fashion as to China and America? And with China and India. A bright future as the world’s dishonest broker.

UK-based al-Wahid pops up regularly on MW with his Britain bashing. But what’s the point of MW publishing his bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you stuff, other than to demonstrate that this ugly trait is not an Israeli monopoly?

Meanwhile, whilst he gets us all arguing about whose fault Israel was in the first place, Israel itself can continue laughing all the way to rest of the West Bank.

seanmcbride: Our current meddling in Ukraine reeks of neoconservatism.

Indeed it does and who’s the leading medddler? Why, none other than Ms. Victoria Nuland. Or perhaps more pertinently in this context Mrs. Robert Kagan. A fact Phil overlooked in his eagerness to tell us “People in D.C. don’t want to hear from neoconservatives.”

At Mondoweiss we are all too familiar with the “Not-a-Zionist”. Is Kagan the first “Not-a-Neocon”?

The Israeli aim is a creeping ethnic cleansing in the WB as more and more of the land is taken over, forcing the Palestinians into an ever smaller space and fractured space. Palestine is more than a legal abstraction on a map, it’s a physical reality. Land taken over is land denied and it will be hard to get that back as Palestinian living space in any two state solution via the any ‘peace process’.

Given that you are a regular reader on MW, I fail to see why you so complacent about this slow ethnic cleansing via displacement or why you place such faith in a two-state solution.

With regard to the participation of Arab nations in BDS — you seem to be saying that it is weak and declining.

sean, I suspect myself that Israel does very little trade with its Arab neighbours - certainly in consumer products - so it would seem unlikely there would be any real grassroots BDS activity.

Rather than doing unscientific surveys on Mondoweiss why not use your search engine of choice (have you boycotted Google yet?) to look for evidence of Israeli consumer products being sold in Arab countries? I checked sodastream.com and they offer no Arab country on their list of locations, not even Abu Dhabi or Bahrein with their large number of western residents and visitors.

Would it be reasonable to predict that Americans and Europeans are not likely to be more strongly committed to Palestinian human rights than Arab nations and the worldwide Arab community?

This seems s a poorly phrased question. I’d be fairly certain that, if asked, a greater percentage of people in the Arab world would express concern about the plight of the Palestinians than in Europe and America - though quite a few might have more pressing immediate concerns of their own. If you mean being by committed to be taking an active part in an campaign such as BDS then see my response to the issue above.

Bottom line Sean, if you end up on the same page as JeffB you need to up your game in the thinking department and, depending on what you are trying to prove here, maybe the moral department as well.

American: The idea, briefly, is to take (through eminent domain) roughly 8,000 square miles of sparsely populated land bordering the Gulf of Mexico and give it to Israel as a second, non-contiguous part of the State of Israel.

Even better, why not stretch those 8000 square miles into a transcontinental ribbon along the US-Mexican border and let New Israel stop illegal immigration using the tried and trusted techniques of the mother country?

Hostage: The article’s title doesn’t match the conclusion he reaches in the final paragraph.

Indeed so, though quite a clever ‘bait and switch’ nevertheless. But then Phil forgot to mention that Telhami is also a nonresident senior fellow of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. I can’t imagine that’s a place that spends much time envisaging a democratic single state.

All in all a dud post, would have been a much better if it had ended with your last paragraph instead.

JeffB: So we are supposed to believe that without USA power one of the top 10 military states on the planet couldn’t handle a few million people with only light arms?

But Jeff, what if the next phase is a non-violent struggle by the Palestinians for equal rights? Use of violence by Israel in response will quickly rot what’s left of its moral core until there’s nothing left.

seanmcbride: ...and anti-Semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jews by the Jewish group.

sean, of course a mind intimately familiar with the forces of the Universe would instinctively apply Newton’s Third Law to the realm of human interaction. But I do you’re being very unreasonable here expecting hophmi to do likewise. He’s clearly no physicist, let alone an Einstein.

seanmcbride: Donald Sterling isn’t a redneck. You need a guidebook to sort out the varieties of racism.

But surely Sean, someone as knowledgeable about the South as yourself should see immediately the parallel with that classic stereotype of the antebellum plantation owner who spends his nights either under a sheet with the Klan or under a sheet with the nubile young slave girl he’d just bought.

Sean McBride For instance, with regard to liberal Zionists, who are we really talking about?

Sean, a list such as this is a useful resource - basic analytical material and supporting data but hardly analytical output. In this example, the real analysis is on the role of ‘liberal Zionism’ in the overall Zionist set-up. I know from many of your earlier posts that you clearly understand how this works. But when you sometimes publish lists of ‘right-wing’ Zionists and then at other times ‘liberal Zionists’ this crucial information gets lost. Lists are data, they need to be transformed into information with context for the average person to understand the big picture. You are much more effective when you do the latter.

Sean McBride: How about you, libra? Have you changed your buying patterns over Israeli issues?

Not much Sean to be honest. I would avoid products like Ahava or Sodastream in any case on value and utility grounds. Avoiding Intel or Google because they have Israeli operations is impractical and plays into Israeli hasbara that they invent all key technologies. So it effects my buying on the margins.

But I think BDS can be effective when targeted on specific companies who are the worst offenders and that in turn will make other companies think twice before investing in Israel. And as Israel becomes more widely recognised as an Apartheid state it will be easier to embarrass the senior management of companies such as Apple and Google, that like to portray themselves as socially progressive, for ‘investing in Apartheid’.

Sean McBride: might that behavior not encourage many consumers to exercise their free choice not to purchase the brands and products on this list?

Sean, far be it for me to critique your listing skills but I notice that Coca-Cola is at number 3. Before this has Mondoweiss cola drinkers rushing to switch to Pepsi, I think I should point out that PepsiCo through its Frito-Lay subsidiary is a 50% owner of Sabra at number 13.

A very cogent analysis by Adam. These five points make a good set of guidelines for the future.

On point 4, I hope the lesson for the Palestinians is to use external agencies like the UN when and where it make sense but not to end up relying on their leadership in any ‘process’- all can be corrupted, not just the US or the disgraceful TB.

yonah fredman: The demand to give the residents of the West Bank the vote is based upon the settler nature of the occupation. The demand to give the residents of the Gaza strip the vote is based upon the concept that Gaza and the West Bank is one and the military siege.

Sean McBride: One would have to be quite dense not to comprehend that we’ve been played here — this has nothing to do with “paranoia.”

Sean, to be played you have to want a two-state solution. Or perhaps more accurately, by wanting two states you play into their hands. The role of the ‘liberal Zionists’ in this farrago is to keep the two-state fantasy alive, very few would believe the sincerity of the ‘Likud Zionists’. It’s this insidious aspect of ‘liberal Zionism’ that makes it the more dangerous face of the Zionist coin.

Though Finkelstein rightly rejects the Kerry proposal for two-states as a sham, at no point does he mention, let alone advocate, a single-state as an alternative. I think Phil should have mentioned that.

Finkelstein appears to be that rare thing, an honest liberal Zionist who believes Israel must make sacrifices to secure ‘the Jewish State’. But in the end he is still a Zionist and that makes me think he is on a very dubious moral and intellectual footing when he advocates for mass Palestinian non-violent resistance.

If he was serious about changing the whole dynamic then advocating for a mass, non-violent Palestinian campaign, supported by international BDS, for equal rights in one state would have made a much more coherent conclusion to his bleak, but in many ways realistic, analysis of the current situation.

Walid: MHughes, now I see where this week’s series on Passover/Easter and the parallels between them have been heading...

Now? Don’t underestimate your own prophetic powers, Walid. Back on April 15th, the second day of this seasonal saga from Professor Ellis, the very first comment was this prescient paragraph penned by your good self:

Marc sees Judaism sinking because of its failure because of the Palestinians and he’s insisting in dragging Christianity down with it. Would have liked to do likewise with Islam, but there was nothing paschal to it.

Why indeed? The Palestinians could stop waiting for outside agencies to act and make this demand on Israel now. The fear of a single-state by Zionists gives the Palestinians real power, but only if they choose to use it. No wonder so much effort is expended on gulling them into continuing with the ‘peace process’, with ‘liberal Zionists’ being the worst offenders.

I'll be impressed by Friedman when he starts advocating for a single-state as the best solution. Someone needs to start preparing American Jews for that eventuality.

As of 2005, the Conference membership consisted of 51 national Jewish organizations – Zionist, "defense," and community-relations, social-service, religious, and fundraising – whose members collectively represent the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community of the United States.

James Canning: Whether this in fact is “the real question” is itself open to question.

Maybe so but it's the question I think the Palestinians should be asking themselves. Unlike you I don’t think playing the ‘long game’ will deliver them their own state on 22% of the land, let alone slightly more. Perhaps you could offer some rationale for your optimism?

Sean McBride: I often find it difficult or impossible to parse your sentences and thoughts.

Sean, it helps to remember LeaNder is German and, in my view, writes very good English. However in this instance, the phrase “post Trayvon Martin case more rare” appears to be a direct translation of what in German is effectively a single adjective. It’s actually quite difficult to translate into English without it seeming in very clumsy though some punctuation helps e.g.

I noticed recently, at one my looks - now more rare post the Trayvon Martin case - at Pat Lang’s Sic Semper Tyrannis blog, that Indyk is involved again.

Perhaps an example of how German can be more powerful than English with its ability to compound concepts together.

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